Category: Festival

Appreciations

heidi08 Beavers or Social Ambasadors, City Reports, Educational, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? August 6, 2014

It’s been a week of treasures and it’s only Wednesday. Yesterday I received this email from a family we met at the dam two weeks ago. They were from Long Beach and eager to see the famous Martinez beavers. Of course our mascots did not disappoint. Since our visitors were so delighted with the show I suggested they might write the mayor and let them know how pleased they were.

Yesterday Michelle sent the entire city council this:

Dear Mr Mayor,

My name is Michelle Lee and I live in Southern California with my family. We’ve done a couple of great American Road Trips in the last twenty years, but this year, we were privileged to witness one of the most emblemic of all Northern American wildlife: the hardworking, family-oriented and stoical Martinez Beaver.

Prior to setting out on our trip this summer, a few weeks ago, we had only ever seen American beavers on film in movies. There is apparently one homed in the Singapore River Safari theme park, but knowing beavers to be highly social animals, we were disappointed but not surprised when we failed to spot it in its enclosure during our visit last year. Imagine how thrilled we were, then, to discover, while researching for our summer trip, http://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress, the Worth a Dam web site put up by Heidi Perryman. We have beavers, thriving in their natural environment, right here, in our own backyard!

Martinez was immediately included on our itinerary. Your location was perfect, for us visiting college towns like Stanford, Berkeley and Davis. You have one of the best Thai restaurants in all of California, north through south: the Lemongrass Bistro. Muir Lodge, which provided us with a most tastefully decorated and comfortable room, was just what we needed for our layover. Sal’s Family Kitchen was the perfect breakfast wake-up in the morning.

And you have the beavers. And they were wonderful. We waited at the secondary dam right by the Amtrak station on 14 July 2014, around 6:30pm, and managed to see three beavers, including the kit. Not knowing as much as we could about the habits of these nocturnal mammals, though, we were pretty bummed we didn’t stay till 8 🙁 That said, the beavers we saw kept us entranced for a good hour or so, just swimming about, nibbling in the rushes, doing generally beaverly things.

Now that we’re home, and able to more fully process our summer vacation, which included visits to the Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon, we can honestly count the Martinez Beavers as one of our most satisfying wildlife experiences. We in Southern California are used to the arid desert, even in this ongoing drought, with our well-watered landscaped city and suburban lawns, so it was quite distressing to see how devastated the land around us was while driving through NorCal. Those tenacious beavers, as corny as it sounds, gave us hope that this drought will eventually pass. Our only regret was we were not able to spend longer in your lovely town than one night. Now, our true regret is having missed this year’s Beaver Festival!

The fact that Martinez has a Beaver Festival indicates that many people do share our fascination with these enchanting animals. However, we were a little surprised, that, of the people we talked to in town, only one person was able to point us in the right direction to the beaver dams, because you have a real treasure in the beavers, and in Worth a Dam. This is such a unique situation you have in Martinez that people are able to observe outside of the artificial and expensive set up of a zoo. We are hopeful that continued education and increased appreciation for the Martinez Beavers will be encouraged to perpetuate and grow. We cannot thank Worth a Dam enough for their information-packed web site. We came from Long Beach just to see this happy beaver family!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Michelle Lee, with Kevin Traster and Loyalty Traster-Lee

Long Beach, California

5 August 2014

Now tell me that wasn’t the best letter you EVER read! Not only did it remind the mayor that the beavers and Worth A Dam are an asset, it must have made those little dollar signs appear in his eyes like on cartoons. She did such a good job that I told her to share it with the local papers so I’m hoping we see it again very soon.

The only part that kind of bugged me was that only one person in town could tell her where the dam was. But when I thought about it I realized that’s actually wonderful. In 2007 when every shop owner on main street was terrified of being flooded every, Susie, Stacey or Sam could have told them. Now the fact that the story isn’t news anymore means that the beavers are no longer a threat and that’s just what we wanted to happen. I thought of Carl Sandburg,

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.

Shovel them under and let me work—

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?

Where are we now?

I am the grass.

Let me work.

Carl Sandburg

Well, I suppose the grass has worked in Martinez. Even I can barely remember the injuries of a city who wanted to destroy its treasures. Now I simply bask in the glow of a job well done and a chapter well written.

And this delightful epilogue about “Joe” made me smile.

Martinez Beaver Festival celebrates beaver family living in downtown creek since 2006

Dam fun

Children parade to the strains of Bruce Maxwell’s bagpipe, above, at the start of the seventh annual Beaver Festival on Saturday, in Martinez, that celebrates the beaver family that has been living in Alhambra Creek since 2006. The event, sponsored by Worth A Dam, attracted visitors from everywhere for activities, music and tours of the beavers’ environment by Joe Ridler, right center.

They don’t show the photo on line, but something tells me I’ve seen Joe before.

People Powered – Solar Powered – Beaver Powered

heidi08 Beavers, Festival, Who's saving beavers now? August 3, 2014

Is it possible to summarize yesterday’s tidal wave of good energy and appreciation? I’m still at a loss for words – (in fact I find I have no voice at all this morning). I’ll let Cheryl’s amazing photos speak for me for now and try to percolate the thoughts that finally coalesce tomorrow. In the mean time thank you SO MUCH to everyone who helped, Hank, Rusty, Bob, Marlene, Paula, my sister Beverly, Erika, Pam, Jeanette, Carla, Estelle, Deidre, Martha, Safari West Junior Keepers, John Koss, Cassy, the incredible musicians and our unbelievably hard working Worth A Dam team: Cheryl, Jon, Lory, Jean and FRo. You pulled off a hugely positive and educational event with massive complications in a postage stamp of space and the greater beaver world is in awe of what you accomplished.

awesome solar power — The amazing portable solar panel ran the amplification. Thank you D.C. Solar!

And I can’t forget the most engineeringly creative part of the entire day:

And the man behind the beaver curtain enjoying his awesome, tail slapping power.

Countdown and Good will

heidi08 Festival, Who's saving beavers now?, Why We Care August 1, 2014

Today is the day we pick up the U-haul and get the stage from the John Muir Historic site, and then Jon loads the pile of everything into the truck to be ready for tomorrow.

It’s a long day for Jon (especially since he had to meet the restroom delivery at 7:00) but honestly I can’t help but feel relieved it’s finally here. Everyone works terribly hard the day of the beaver festival. The entire day is practically a blur and everyone’s exhausted by the end, but my personal, 6 month trial will be mostly over before the day even begins. All the planning, promoting, wheedling, scheming, arranging and rearranging will be finished. Once I make sure that every item on my many lists gets into that truck, and gets unloaded to approximately the right places tomorrow, my work is pretty much finished. Every single one of my arrows, such as they are, will be fired. Now it will be everyone else’s job to get the baton across the finish line.

I just have to sit in the shade and talk about beavers all day. How hard is that?

So let’s celebrate my impending emancipation with this lovely article. It ran in the Martinez Gazette yesterday and I was surprised to see it because we already got our ‘official’ plug. Vivian Roubal’s inviting writing style makes the entire column a must read, but her finishing paragraphs brought tears to my eyes.

Take a walk on the wild side

A Beaver Festival? By golly, there’s always something going on in Martinez! A day in Martinez can be a wild adventure! A wildlife adventure, that is.

One particularly fine morning in March at about 6 a.m., I stopped on Marina Vista Avenue near Castro Street to check out the beaver dam. Sometimes I get lucky and see the famous Martinez beavers swimming or walking along the creekside, but that morning the waters were fairly calm; a water skeeter-bug here or there and that was it. I was about to continue my walk when I heard a small splashing sound. It seemed to come from right under me, so I got up on tippy-toes and leaned over the chest-high railing on the bridge. I looked straight down, hoping to catch sight of a beaver or whatever made the splash.

Plunk! My brand new glasses (with rhinestones!) fell right off my head and dropped straight down into the creek. A small brown cloud swallowed them up whole. Son of a gun.

Don’t worry her daughter and husband manage to get those glasses back, (with the help of a kind stranger) and the entire operation makes for excellent story-telling. (And explains some footprints!) But this was obviously my favorite part. It starts by recounting the beaver history and then launches into the prose of our good friend Rick Lanman (Rickipedia).

According to my friend Wikipedia, “Now protected, the beaver have transformed Alhambra Creek from a trickle into multiple dams and beaver ponds, which in turn, led to the return of steelhead and North American river otter in 2008 and mink in 2009. The Martinez beavers probably originated from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta which once held the largest concentration of beaver in North America.”

And the “Worth a Dam” website (MartinezBeavers.org) says, “Beaver experts from across the country have come to Martinez to appreciate this unique setting and learn about our community response. The beavers have become a unifying symbol for an expanding town that can often be uncertain of its center. This represents a unique opportunity to demonstrate humane environmentalism in the home town of John Muir.”

Jeff and I enjoyed the Beaver Festival last year. There were lots of wildlife informational booths, many activities for children, and guided tours of the beaver habitat. It was a joyful place to be.

So do something out of the ordinary. Come to the 7th annual Beaver Festival on Saturday, Aug. 2, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Beaver Park (corner of Marina Vista and Castro streets). There will be live music, wildlife exhibits from seven counties, children’s activities and beaver tours. The first 100 children can earn a charm necklace.

Go ahead. Walk on the wild side! Don’t be square, see you there!

How sweet is that? Honestly I was all kinds of touched. It really is a joyful place to be. And this year I feel the benevolence more strongly than any other except maybe the first. The beaver festival seems to unlock generosity in people. I feel like I keep getting lovely surprises that were not at all the result of my planning. Like Deidre Martin organizing the Wetland Express from Oakland, or a volunteer from Auburn contacting me out of the blue to help with two of her relatives, or this email from Faith of the Beavers Rowing Team at Mare Island;

Hi, my name is Faith and I am a member of The Straits of Mare Island Rowing Association. I row for a mixed team that we proudly call The Beavers. This year our youngest team mate was told she has stage 3 breast cancer. In an effort to help her with expenses we has a fundraiser selling green silicon bracelets with the phrase Beaver Believer with beaver prints on each side. We where able to raise $1300.00 for our dear friend, but have quite a few bracelet left over. As a team we decided we would like to donate the remaining bracelets to a great beaver cause. Let me know if you are interested.

So do you think I was interested? The next morning she dropped off about 200 of these at my house.

Those are front and rear foot prints, just so you know. Everyone who volunteers and everyone who picks up at least a 10 dollar item from membership will take one home.Thanks so much Faith and your generous team, I hope your youngest member is doing excellent and sticks around until she becomes your oldest member!

Oh and the truant in me loves the idea that she invites us all to the beaver festival and adds “as long as you have a parking place, you might check out the peddler’s faire.”

And as long as you’ve already found a parking space, might as well enjoy the Peddlers Faire on Main Street where you’ll find plenty to choose from. There will be a huge variety of antiques and collectibles, from glassware to pottery and furniture to Native American wares and much more. Enjoy the downtown stores and the over 50 local craft vendors. Then treat yourself to a fabulous lunch in any one of our great restaurants.

Considering the beaver festival has always been the red-headed step child of the peddler’s faire, once expressly advised to stay clear and now with a greater attendance, TV promotion and better press than it’s patron, I think we’re doing okay. Good will is on our side.

A picture’s worth 1000 words…

heidi08 Beavers and salmon, City Reports, Environmental, Festival July 29, 2014

Aquatic life near a mine pit lake underwater beaver lodge

Brainerd Dispatch staff phtographer (and diver) Steve Kohls filmed the aquatic life near a mine pit lake underwater beaver lodge. See suspended sunfish, thousands of minnow and lurking bass all hanging out in their aquatic underworld.

The powers that be will not let me embed that video, so click on the picture and go see it yourself. Honestly, it’s worth it. Just look at the biodiversity of life near that beaver lodge, and remember the amount of mud and soil beavers excavate to maintain a lodge or access a food cache in winter. Beaver digging makes diverse invertebrate communities which make divers FISH communities.

Now remember that this is the Cuyuna Mine Pit lake in Minnesota. Cuyuna was a mine dedicated to excavation of iron ore which like most mines has all kinds of pollution fallout – including something charmingly called “acid mine drainage”. Could Cuyuna do anything better to restore those damaged pits? I think not. Thank you Steve Kohl, for this great proof of beaver biodiversity!

Castor Anglicus took my advice and set Adrian’ Forester’s recording to photos. Love the headlines and the awesome images. I’m wishing it had some video and slicker editing, but I’m very picky and the news stations should leap at this.

Speaking of news, yesterday I met with ABC channel 7 down at the dam to talk about beaver, water, and drought – as well as plug the festival. It was one of those fun interviews where the interviewer started out disinterested and nonplussed by his assignment, and ended up eager and fascinated, running up and down the creek photographing birds, talking to onlookers, and asking for a bumper sticker.

I hope his conversion means there will be a nice segment on prime news, but you never know. He kept shaking his head and saying “You’re amazing on camera! You answered every question so succinctly!”Which made me smile a little and think of the old Paula Poundstone line….

“Last night’s show was an amazing crowd. I did an hour and a half. I could have done more, but the club had really bad security and a lot of the audience got away”.

I’ll let you know when it’s airs. Hopefully Thursday.

Oh, and in the mean time you need to see this. Honestly. You. Just. Do.

Public Works: The Amazing Self-Powered Garbage-Trapping Machine

Meet the trash-collecting contraption that’s cleaning up Baltimore’s harbour.

Invented by Clearwater Mills LLC, the Interceptor floats at the mouth of the Jones Falls river, through which garbage used to flow into the inner harbour. Now booms (floating barriers) direct debris towards the 4.3-metre-tall garbage collection machine. Spring-charged rakes claw the refuse onto a conveyor belt, which is powered by a water wheel spun by solar-powered pump. The belt carts the garbage into a dumpster, which, once full, is dragged by boat to a waste-to-energy conversion plant.

How awesome would this be at the Marina? Some adaptions would let it run on tides twice a day. Shell could pay for it, New Leaf Academy could promote and maintain it, and Martinez could be the east coast premier of another dam good idea.

The Best of ‘Times’

heidi08 Beavers, City Reports, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? July 23, 2014

Martinez: Beavers in festival spotlight

MARTINEZ — A segment of Martinez’ wetlands will soon be teeming with life, along with its myriad microorganisms, lush foliage and robust array of fowl and creatures that are already present.

The public will once again gather Saturday, Aug. 2, to celebrate an ever-expanding family of beavers who play a key role in creating such diversity — from one end of the food chain to the other — at the seventh annual Beaver Festival, featuring live music, wildlife exhibits from throughout the world, children’s activities and tours of the beavers’ environs.

This is a very good article. Not only does the author, Jennifer Shaw get the details right on the festival, she nails them remarkably on BEAVERS in general. The only thing this article is missing is photographs. Maybe they’ll be in the print version? But maybe there wasn’t space with all Jennifer’s awesome words. I’ll add some. Go read the whole thing. (The CC Times has a very bad habit of only keeping the article viewable for a month, so I’m making a backup right now.)

This year, an Amtrak train car of folks will be part of the coterie of beaver fans, as a retired curator of aquatic biology at the Oakland Museum of California — and self-proclaimed “chief creek snooper” at Flow Back in Time — helps to open their respective eyes about the eco-vibrancy of creek life.

Christopher Richards will lead the group out to Alhambra Creek’s inlet to put into context just how an industrious group of sleek-coated beavers have stabilized creek banks, decreased flooding risks through fostering the growth of the natural riparian vegetation, and assisted in restoring the natural function and hydrology of the stream.

“(Beavers) are the productivity, the agriculture for the critters in the creek,” he says, citing the beavers’ habitat as an illustration of how “we can manage, neglect or restore creeks in the urban Bay Area landscape.”

That should get some attention! I hope it gets picked up by a paper on the other side of the tunnel! In the mean time a huge round of applause for Deidre Martin who made the entire thing possible. She brought her children to see the beavers last summer and the furry ingrates didn’t even show up! But she decided then and there to contribute.

Deidre Martin, a San Francisco resident and volunteer natural sciences docent at the Oakland Museum, is among those beaver enthusiasts who will board the Wetlands Express, already championing the sanctity of this native animal.

“We need to dispel the notion of beavers as pests … They’re a keystone species. They create habitat for other animals,” she says.

Can I get an Amen? Deidre came to our planning dinner and was a delightful contributor -and that night she got to see the beavers before catching the train home. A San Francisco resident, Deidre first heard of our beavers from Kate Lundquist of the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, and decided she needed to come see for herself.

Jennifer also talked to Worth A Dam pillars Cheryl and Fro.

“They’re a family unit. They all work together,” says Cheryl Reynolds, a Worth A Dam board member, describing the beavers’ lodge-dwelling digs, vegetarian diet, and their average 35-pound size.

kit and mom — New mom and Kit – Cheryl Reynolds

And, Pleasant Hill resident and artist Frogard Butler will once again facilitate a hands-on, experiential learning opportunity for the younger set.

Young artists will be making leather, textured, crisscross-patterned beaver tails in three sizes — adult, yearling and kit — and decorating them. Some participants have been known to return to the festival, sporting attached beavers tails.”

I love to see how everything comes together. I sure hope this article seeps outside the Record, But shhh this is my very favorite part!

The Martinez resident quickly segues from cute descriptions to basic science, always lobbying for the beavers that play a key role in creating the overall health of the ecosystem.

“The beavers are changing the invertebrate community; they’re forming nooks and crannies; and constantly moving mud,” says Perryman, noting that different insects flourish at different elevations of the terrain, and thus account for an ensuing “fish bloom,” and a greater diversity of birds.

I love segueing from cute to science! And I ADORE being called a beaver lobbyist. Let’s face it. When she’s right, she’s right.